Page 113 of A Sword of Ice
“Iona.”
Iona’s gaze caught the prince’s. He was all hard expression and slashing lines, yet she detected a hint of softness around his features that was surprising. “Are you well?”
She couldn’t bring herself to answer so she gave him a terse, slow nod that she was sure nobody believed.
Because she wasn’t okay.
But she was functioning, and that seemed good enough for the prince.
He nodded once and turned, leaving them to follow. And as they made it down to the courtyard, Iona limping and Julius carrying most of her weight, Valerio snapped his fingers and a shimmering portal opened beside him and his silver guard.
“It is time to leave,” he announced. “A better life awaits those who wish to follow.”
One by one, the Fae gratefully piled into the portal.
“Weylyn,” the prince said, his gaze going to the golden Fae. The silent Fae smiled, and it was a look that was absolutely savage. It was like Valerio had given him a silent command that he was all too eager to follow. He turned and began chopping through humans. No one paused to watch them be butchered, because that was how little they mattered.
When they were down to the last few Fae of their own little group, Valerio turned to Shula and ordered, his voice a whip against the night, “Let it burn.”
Shula Azzarh’s eyes responded in kind, brightening like embers as she turned away from them. She looked over her shoulder, her gaze meeting Iona’s, and she held out her hand. Like she wanted Iona to do this with her, or like she needed the strength of a friend.
Whatever it was, Iona limped forward and took Shula’s hand, the weight of her palm warm, grounding, and fueled with the magic of Mana.
“Let it burn, fire Fae,” Iona whispered as a single tear slipped down her cheek.
“What is it?”
The words almost stuck in her throat, but Iona found herself confessing anyway. “My sister was sent to her execution.”
Shula looked at her sadly. “She could still be alive.” But there was doubt in her voice.
It broke Iona even further.
She didn’t bother to contradict the Fae. Instead, she flicked her gaze over this cursed place and hatred rose up inside her to stay. She turned, holding out her free hand to Julius.
“Your dagger,” she croaked.
He didn’t question her and quickly placed a blade in her palm which she turned on herself.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Iona ignored her mate’s panicked question, slipping her hand away from Shula’s so she could grab that first curl and snipped it away.
The lock floated to the ground, and once she began, she couldn’t stop. She sawed through the tight spirals of her curls, shearing the hair near her scalp with a quick desperation. Her sobs and heaving breaths were soon the only sound to be heard, an echoing song of her grief that she couldn’t stop.
When the final wisps of curls had been chopped, her hand gripped tightly to Shula’s wrist. “Burn it, Shula,” she whispered as her tears froze against her cheeks. “Burn it to the fucking ground.”
Then the fire consumed, crawling across the ground like demons from nightmares and wrapped around the iron prison and ignited, blazing up the sky, shadowing it with ash and dark and light like they’d done to so many Fae before.
And for a moment there was nothing to do but watch solemnly.
As the whole place fucking burned.
48
The Blood of a Prince
Black smoke spiraled towards the sky, staining it with a darkness that spread throughout the entire city of Wyrshl. The fire had long since died, leaving nothing but embers and ash in its wake, along with the broken structure of a once great camp.
